Down to Earth: How does Morocco turn fog into drinking water? • FRANCE 24 English

Down to Earth: How does Morocco turn fog into drinking water? • FRANCE 24 English

Abdis Salam Amir’s olive trees are dead. Killed by the drought that’s gripped Morocco for the past six years. We used to call this landfight. Literally abundant water. There was water everywhere. End of story. It used to be a region where there was enough water. Now, if you want to find it, you have to dig 160 or even 240 m. But to drill that deep, you need money. Look, everything is dry. There isn’t a drop of water left there. There’s nothing left. Everything is dead. And all of this is because of the drought. He can no longer sell his olives. The vineyards also burnt down. Like him, many Moroccans are suffering from the lack of water. The country has experienced record heat waves of up to 50° C, and there’s been less rain each year. The most isolated mountain villages are on the front line. In southern Morocco, these scientists set themselves a challenge to find water for those who no longer have any. And they succeeded. These huge nets installed at altitudes above 1,200 m capture fog to extract water. You see these nets? They’re threedimensional. So when the fog gets here, it’s trapped. It’s like a kind of spiderwe. And so the water has time to get trapped to trickle down here. And then from there, it goes to the system below where everything is stored. The location is ideal. The city region is regularly covered in thick fog that gets pushed into the nets by cold currents from the ocean. This 100% green system collects an average of 37,000 lers of water each day, which is then distributed to neighboring villages. For about €4 a month, families now have access to running water. Before they used wells. And with wells, there’s not always a guarantee of water. With drought, the wells are depleted. With climate change, it’s even worse. And now, for them, it’s like a miracle because collecting fog water and having water in this abundance is almost impossible to imagine. All right. Now we have water at home and we don’t have to walk for hours anymore. When it’s hot, we can just turn on the tap. Today, nearly 1,000 people have access to water thanks to this project. Morocco, which has the world’s largest fog traps, plans to install more nets to combat both climate change and water shortages.

Morocco has faced a severe drought for the past six years, devastating agriculture and drying up water sources, especially in isolated mountain villages. Drilling deeper to find water is costly and often impossible for local farmers. 

In southern Morocco, scientists have developed an innovative solution: large fog-catching nets installed at altitudes above 1,200 metres. These nets trap moisture from the fog, allowing water droplets to flow into storage tanks. 

This ecological system produces about 37,000 litres of water per day, which is distributed to nearby villages. Morocco is home to the world’s largest fog traps, designed to fight climate change and address water scarcity.
##Morocco ##FogHarvesting ##drought

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